Invention: The Master-key to Progress

by Bradley A. Fiske

It was a curious invention—an invention the like of which one cannot easily specify; for the thing invented was not a material mechanism, or a theory, or anything exactly like anything else. It is difficult to classify a logarithm except as a logarithm:—yet Napier did create something; he did make something exist that had not existed before; he did conceive an idea and embody that idea in a concrete machine. That machine, in the hands of a man who understood it, could supply extraordinary assistance in making mathematical calculations, especially calculations involving many operations and many figures, as in astronomy. It has been in continual use since Napier invented it, and is used still. In order to indicate the simplicity and the value of Napier's invention, it may assist those who have forgotten what a logarithm is, or who have been so fortunate as never to have been compelled to study about them, to state that logarithms are numbers so adapted to numbers to be multiplied, divided, or raised to any power, that one simply adds their logarithm, subtracts one logarithm from the other or multiplies or divides a logarithm by the number representing the power, and then notes in a table the number resulting, instead of going through the long process of multiplying, dividing, squaring, etc. Of course, in the case of small numbers, the use of logarithms is not only unnecessary but undesirable; but in the case of the long numbers used in astronomy, and even in navigation, logarithms are inexpressibly helpful and time-saving. The mental feat of Napier consisted in conceiving the idea of accomplishing what he subsequently did accomplish, and then constructing and producing the "logarithmic tables" that made it possible.

Another indication of the new intellectual movement in Europe was the experiments, deductions and inventions of William Gilbert, an English physician, who lived from 1540 till 1603. According to the use of the word invention followed in this book, only two actual inventions can be credited to Gilbert, that of the electroscope and that of magnetization. Gilbert's work was valuable in the highest degree, more valuable than that of most inventors; and yet it was more inductive and deductive than inventional. It is not the purpose of this book to suggest that invention has been the only kind of work that men have done which has had an influence on history; and the work of Gilbert gives the author an opportunity to emphasize the value of certain work which is not inventional. At the same time, the author cannot resist the temptation of pointing out that Gilbert's work was original and constructive, that it hovered around the borders of invention, and that it did more to assist the inventors of the electric and electro-magnetic appliances that were soon to follow, than the work of almost any other one man.

The full influence of Gilbert's work was not apparent for many years; not, in fact, until the discoveries and inventions of Volta, Galvani and Faraday showed the possibilities of utilizing electricity for practical purposes. Then the facts which Gilbert had established, and the discoveries built upon them afterward, were the basis of much of the work of those great men, and of the vast science of electrical engineering that resulted.

The inventions made before the opening of the seventeenth century A. D., wonderful as they were, were quite widely separated in time, and seem to have been wholly the outcome of individual genius, and not the result or the indication of any widespread intellectual movement. But soon after it opened, the influence of printing in spreading knowledge became increasingly felt, and inventions began to succeed each other with rapidity, and to appear in places far apart.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, certain writings appeared in England that took great hold on the minds of thinking men, not only in England, but throughout Europe. The name of the author was Francis Bacon.

It would not be within the scope of this book even to attempt to analyze the philosophy of Bacon, to differentiate between it and the philosophy of Aristotle or any other of the great thinkers of the world, or to try to trace directly the influence of Bacon's philosophy on his own time and on future times. It is obvious, however, that Bacon invented a system of inductive reasoning that assisted enormously to give precision to the thoughts of men in his own day, by convincing them of the necessity of first ascertaining exact facts, and then inferring correct conclusions from those facts. This seems to us an easy thing to do, looking at the matter in the light of our civilization. But it was not easy, though Bacon's high position gave him a prestige exceptional for a philosopher to possess; and this smoothed his way considerably. Men had not yet learned to think exactly. The efforts of even the great minds were of a groping character; and fanciful pictures made by the imagination seem to have intertwined themselves with facts, in such a way that correct inferences (except in mathematical operations) were hardly to be expected. Bacon insisted that every start on an intellectual expedition should be made from absolutely indisputable facts.

The first effect of such teaching was to make men seek for facts. Not long afterward, we find that many men were making it the main business of their lives to seek for facts from Nature herself. This does not mean that men had not sought for facts before from Nature, or that Bacon alone is to be credited with the wonderful increase in the work of research and investigation that soon began.

Bacon's principal book was published in 1620, and called the "Novum Organum," or "the new instrument." It was obviously an invention, for it was a definite creation of a wholly new thing, that originated in a definite conception, and was developed into a concrete instrument. That Bacon so regarded it is evident from the title that he gave it. Furthermore, he described it as "the science of a better and more perfect use of reason in the investigation of things and of the true aids of the understanding." Bacon was a patient of Dr. Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood; and it would be strange indeed if Bacon's philosophy did not give to Harvey a great deal of guidance and suggestion that furthered his experiments.

William Harvey discovered the fact that the blood circulates in the bodies of living animals. This declaration stated by itself would convey to the minds of some the idea that Harvey discovered it, somewhat as a boy might discover a penny lying on the ground. The first definition of the word discover in the Standard Dictionary is "to get first sight or knowledge of"; so that the mere announcement that an investigator has "discovered" something gives to many people an incorrect idea of his achievement. Harvey discovered the fact of the circulation of the blood after years of experimentation and research on living animals, and by work of a most laborious kind. His conclusions were not accepted by many for a very considerable period; but he was fortunate, like Bacon, in holding a position of such influence and prestige, that he escaped most of the violent opposition that inventors usually meet.

Harvey's discovery did not of itself constitute an invention; but the embodiment of that discovery in a concrete theory, so explained "that persons skilled in the art could make and use it," did constitute an invention of the most definite kind. The whole influence of that invention on history, only a highly equipped physician could describe; but, nevertheless, one may feel amply justified in stating that its influence on the science and practice of surgery and medicine, and on the resulting health of all the civilized nations of the world, has been so great as to be incalculable.